Consequences of Learning

I have learned some valuable information about the international early childhood field from the podcasts and from exploring the websites. Below are three consequences of my learning:

1) I have gained international knowledge of how early childhood issues affect other parts of the world. I also learned ways in which other countries are dealing with these issues.

2) I have gained additional resources that I can use throughout my early childhood career. These resources offer information that can be used to continue my professional development as I work to help families and childern in early education.

3) Lastly, I have gained other cultural perspectives on early education. By exploring international contacts, it has given me other ideas and insights into early childhood issues.

My goal is to continue to use these resources to broaden my understanding of international issues related to early childhood education. Hopefully, as my colleagues and I continue to grow as professionals, we will remember the insights we have gained from these resources and from each other. I wish you all well in your professional endeavors.

UNESCO Website

I enjoyed reading about early childhood quality in the section on the right hand side under policies briefs. There was an article on the early childhood workforce in developed countries. I found a section of this article to be interesting because it talked about the origins of early childhood services. Dating back to the 19th century, there were two main origins in early childhood services: nurseries for poor families and schools for middle class families. Today we offer early education to all familes; however, because of this history, there is a divide between systems with differences in staff, access, cost, funding, and regulations. Still we have divided systems with one system offering "childcare workers" and the other offering "teachers". There is a difference in education levels, pay for staff, employment conditions, and social status between the two systems. In towns all across America, this is still a problem today and education professionals and early childhood advocates are trying to change this through policy reform.

Under the investments tab, I found an interesting article that shared information about how Colombia created and two percent early childhood development payroll tax in order to improve programs for children and families in Colombia. In 2004, 21% of the population received services. An evaluation showed that the programs created by the funds from this tax expanded women's employment, improved children's cognitive and social development, and protected children. However, the following areas still needed improvement: home child care environments, mother educator training, child development, nutrition, and health services.

I found this paragraph on access to be very powerful.
"Central governments must ensure an equitable distribution of resources among different populations and especially those who live in the most disadvantaged regions. This approach aims to expand access without creating serious regional inequities. However, where there is universal provision for a certain age group while the overall enrolment in other age groups is low, this policy can create inequity."

Resource:
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education-systems/early-childhood/access/

Sharing Web Resources

On the website, NAECTE, I followed the outside link under Journal. This link takes you to the Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education where it welcomes research reports, position papers, and essays on educational issues. When exploring a little deeper, I noticed a side bar on the right hand side that shared the "most read" articles, so I thought I would take a look at those.

The article that I thought best related to our class and study was an article on Historical Themes and Contemporary Issues. This article discusses the increase of investment in prekindergarten education  and raises questions of what makes a well-qualified early childhood teacher. In this article, the author explores what is "high quality" and attempts to define quality teaching. It also suggests that there is much to be learned from the history of kindergarten and talks about ideas of best practices. This article touches on the topics of equity and excellence as we have explored this week. In order to reach excellence an early childhood program will have to be of high quality and employee well-qualified, educated teachers.

Global Children's Initiative

As I explored the Center of the Developing Child @ Harvard University, I gained the following insight:

What is the Initiative about?
The Center on the Developing Child from Harvard University has committed to global work in other nations to meet the needs of all children around the world. Using strategic objectives from the U.S., the Global Children's Initiative has built a portfolio of activities in early childhood development, child mental health, and children in crisis and conflict situations. The plan is to educate leaders of international agencies, publish scientific framework for global work in early education, and research effective ways to translate information on child development to global policymakers. The initiative also wants to focus on the issue of child mental health, an issue that is currently not effectively addressed. There is a group working to develop a focused research agenda.

National Forum on Early Childhood Policy and Programs
This forum works to explain why investing in early education for young children is important. The forum tries to answer the questions of why and how investments should be made and assesses program evaluation research. There are several featured publications and videos to explain programs and policies related to early education.

Child Mental Health Network
This was started by the Center on the Developing Child in 2008 to address the gap of what we know and what we need to know about child and adolescent mental health. It focuses on the child development until young adulthood and using this knowledge of children's mental health to inform policy and practice. The initiative focuses on four areas that account for the majority of child mental health concerns: anxiety and anxiety disorders, depression, ADHD, and conduct problems ranging from disobedience to violence.

Web Resources

When exploring the website for NAECTE, I found numerous helpful resources. I went onto the journals link and saw a journal on Preparing Early Childhood Teachers for English Language Learners. This seemed to include valuable information for teachers who have students that English is not their native language. This article described what occurred during the first year of professional development within a early childhood preparation program. This development helped the faculty move from awareness level to integrated English Language Learners skill development. I found this to be valuable information as we head into a more culturally diverse world.

I did not find any information about the support of economist, scientist, and politicans, but  I found the book resources to be interesting and relate to past topic of diversity, dual language learners, early childhood curriculum and many others. There is a brief description on each book. It includes a book on issues faced by immigrant children and challenges and successes within the school setting, as well as others concerning the issue of diversity.

Contacts and Poverty

I have had no response from the contacts that I sent emails two weeks ago, and I am curious to see if any of my classmates have had better luck. Because I received no communication from educators around the world, I had to complete the podcast assignment this week.

 I listened to the podcast on Susan Lyon. She is an early childhood professional from the San Francisco area. She brought a concept called "100 Languages of Children" to northern California after visiting Reggio Emilia.  She also started the Innovative Teacher Project where she offered participating schools round table discussions on how to use this approach to give children a wonderful environment to learn.

 I have had no communication with early childhood professionals, so I went to the Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Center's page. Wow, what great information! I was shocked when I read that 600 million children worldwide live in poverty. I cannot even comprehend the magnitude of this issue. It is definitely an issue that our country needs to improve on.

 I was interested to see how poverty affected children in China. Education is a top priority in China and even poor families say that they would not let poverty prevent their children from a proper education or entering higher education. However, like in other countries, the limitations are still there. There are no additional funds to invest in additional education programs or private tuitions for after school hours. Also, children of poor families are not able to get the vaccinations not covered by the state funded immunization plan. In times of need, poor families often relied on relatives, friends, and neighborhood committees. 60 % of urban households receive the Minimum Living Standard Security Allowance.

Resource: National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators

NAECTE Newsletter link: http://www.naecte.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14&Itemid=29 )

When reading this newsletter, I found the information on developmentally appropriate media programming very interesting, as it relates to this week's topic of discussion. The University of West Georgia's Department of Early Care and Learning expressed understanding of the social and cultural value of the content in which young children are exposed to. As audio-visual programming entertains and informs young children, it helps them to develop their identity, so it is important that young children are provided with media that reflect who they are. Public television is the leader in providing high quality educational programming, in fact, 85 percent of parents trust what their children are watching. As studies show that children watch four hours of television a day, the goal of the Developmental Appropriate Programming and the University of West Georgia Television Station 13 is to offer education, information, and language development to young children in a fun, exciting way. This program plans to meet the needs of area prekindergarten children through service learning, storytelling, puppetry, and exploring culture and traditions.

This issue made me consider the television program that my four year old spends a lot of time watching. He loves to watch the shows on Nick Jr. where he has learned many social concepts, practiced speaking Spanish, explored musical concepts, and much more. He has even answered me in Japanese and often counts in Spanish after watching popular shows on this network. The network's slogan is "preschool on TV," and I believe that it has given my child many social and cultural experiences. There is a wonderful cultural variety on this network with shows like: Dora the Explorer (Spanish), Go Diego Go (Spanish) and Nihao, Kai-lan (Japanese). I feel this is such a great experience for young children to see this on television and then be able to embrace cultural differences as they grow up in our changing society.